Kayla Crowley Carbery

For my Transition year, every Tuesday afternoon I got the opportunity to volunteer in Don Bosco Care as part of my TY program. My friend Hazel and I would spend these afternoons working with the fundraising department, dropping letters of appeal into postboxes, preparing for and partaking in carol singing outside the GPO, coming up with fundraising ideas of our own and doing organisation and filing work around the office.

We finished our time with Don Bosco in May as the school year was ending, however after having such a positive experience there, we promised to keep in touch and help out whenever we could.

A few weeks later we received an email from Kevin, our supervisor from our time in Don Bosco, letting us know about a brilliant opportunity: speaking on radio about Don Bosco and our time there. Saoirse, who is on an internship with Don Bosco had contacted Near fm looking to speak about her internship with Don Bosco and jobbridge. She had invited either me and Hazel to come along with her to give a second view of Don Bosco.

Hazel was away so I was happy to go, although I was very nervous. I arrived into Near fm studios on the 6th of June, after 2 long bus journeys, to be greeted by Declan Ralph, the presenter of Week in Review and his daughter who was also in TY. They talked to me and Saoirse about the process and tried to ease our nerves, although we were still quite on edge.

The show went on air at 12:30, and Declan began to interview us. Fortunately for my nerves, he asked Saoirse most of the questions but I still got plenty of air time. I talked about my time in Don Bosco, the activities we took part in and also the general TY experience. Saoirse spoke about Don Bosco's work, her internship and Jobbridge.

Once we finished I was so glad I did it. The opportunity was one I may never get again and was great practice for speaking in future. I would like to thank Saoirse, Kevin and the rest of Don Bosco for giving me the opportunity to speak on radio and also for the time spent in Don Bosco for the past year.